kristen welker in hawaii, thank you for that. >>> joining me for more on the fiscal cliff negotiations is john yarmouth. welcome, thank you. glad to have you back on the show. >> thank you. >> president obama still thinks a deal can be reached, but speaker boehner had a pretty tough defeat when republicans balked at the plan to raise rates of those making over $1 million. where do you put the chances of a deal being reached before january? >> i don't think they are very high. the more likely scenario, rates will go up automatically on january 1st, and we discussed earlier on the program, that we'll meet early next year and cut taxes of 98% of american people, slightly more than that. but there is an outside chance, and one scenario in which the president and speaker boehner negotiate a deal, and it's a deal that most democrats can accept, instead of a majority of the republicans in the house, 40 or 50 of them vote with democrats to avert the fiscal cliff on the tax side, but that jeopardizes speaker boehner's job. he would be driving the bus over his most conservative members. >> if th